[Mikel]

Ok, so you've played Sonic Spinball, right?

Sonic Spinball uses the GEMS Sound Driver, so you can't port any of the songs from the game to Sonic 1 or 2 because the music isn't compressed in SMPS.

Here are locations for Ship and Sonic Spinball (Thanks to drx for Ship):

Ship:
Driver: $0D574 - $0EDF9
Patches: $0EDFA - $0F0CB
Sequences: $0F0CC - $0FBB2
Samples: $0FBB3 - $011345

Sonic Spinball:
Driver: $0A882A - $0AA0AF
Patches: $0AA0B0 - $0AB4FF
Sequences: $0AB500 - $0B33C7
DAC: $0B33C8 - $0BD55C - Thanks to HPZMan for the locations of the DAC.

Here is a List of games that use the GEMS, SMPS, and Cube Sound Drivers.

And here are the Sound Driver files for Sonic Spinball and Ship:

GEMS Sound Driver Files for Sonic Spinball and Ship

[drx]

That's cool, glad someone was able to make use of the released GEMS driver. In fact I received another version that I need to release sometime :P

[roxahris]

Will those files work in GEMS?

[Mikel]

drx, on Sep 28 2008, 07:24 PM, said:

That's cool, glad someone was able to make use of the released GEMS driver. In fact I received another version that I need to release sometime :P

Thanks, I'll look forward for the next version of the GEMS development kit.

roxahris, on Sep 28 2008, 08:21 PM, said:

Will those files work in GEMS?

Well, I have yet to check if the files work in the GEMS developmet kit. If they work, I'll PM you on how to open them on the GEMS development kit.

[ICEknight]

Mikel, on Sep 29 2008, 05:08 PM, said:

roxahris, on Sep 28 2008, 08:21 PM, said:

Will those files work in GEMS?

Well, I have yet to check if the files work in the GEMS developmet kit. If they work, I'll PM you on how to open them on the GEMS development kit.

No need to PM, there might be other people who want to know...

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 30 September 2008 - 04:34 AM

[Eduardo Knuckles]

This is pretty awesome. Now I can't wait to see a converter to port musics from GEMS games.
Great work, man!

This post has been edited by Eduardo Knuckles: 01 November 2008 - 06:25 PM

[Andlabs]

Nice find, Mikel!

Now all that's left is to add Music Hacking into the mix... but should it be mixed with the SMPS stuff? Or should I make a new page SCHG:Sonic Spinball Music Hacking?

But first I'll have to find out about the GEMS music format.

GEMS -> SMPS and SMPS -> GEMS might follow.

This post has been edited by Andlabs: 27 May 2009 - 04:39 PM

[nineko]

When I found locations for Mean Bean Machine, which uses the Cube driver, they've been put here. So I think you should do something similar.

[Glisp]

I really want the Sound driver files for Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park Rampage Edition. I also want them from both Vectorman games.

Basically, aside from a few games, the Gems sound driver looks like it was used for many STI games and Blue Sky software. Just about any game Affiliated with SOA used GEMS as long as it was made in America first, aside from some of the older games.

This is kind of off subject so forgive me but Rocket Knight Adventures uses the Hyperstone Heist Sound Driver. I really want a tool in the future that can convert Sound Driver files between formats.

[TmEE]

GEMS sucks... Cube FTW

[nineko]

I really want a tool in the future that can convert Sound Driver files between formats.

I think we all want that. But it's not as easy as you think.
As of today, the only partially working cross-format converter is a Cube/Iwadare to SMPS converter. Though its results are sloppy because Cube/Iwadare is way more awesome than SMPS.

[Glisp]

I really want a tool in the future that can convert Sound Driver files between formats.

I think we all want that. But it's not as easy as you think.
As of today, the only partially working cross-format converter is a Cube/Iwadare to SMPS converter. Though its results are sloppy because Cube/Iwadare is way more awesome than SMPS.

Well we don't quite know enough about the different formats yet. Hell some of them have Custom Sound Drivers we still don't even know the names to yet. (Example: Streets of Rage 2)

[Andlabs]

It looks like a GEMS to SMPS converter program would need to recognize that sequences (the music data), DAC samples, and patches (the FM and PSG voices) would be in separate files, and that the sequences file would contain all the songs. That is,

music\Sequences.bin
music\Patches.bin
music\DAC.bin

So a program would wind up having to ask for at least the Sequences and Patches file as well as the ID of the sequence they wish to convert. On the flipside, there would have to be a small tool to extract DAC samples; integration into the game is, well, just like whatever other samples of people saying FUCK THAT SHIT you can get into the ROM.

Here is the format of the Sequences file:

Offsets of definitions of all sequences [two bytes each]
Definitions of all sequence [1 byte for number of channels n; 2n bytes for offsets of each channel]
Channel data

Here's Ship's, as an example:

CODE

*
* Sequence Offset Table
*

    dc.b    $04,$00; Offset to sequence #0: 4
    dc.b    $11,$00; Offset to sequence #1: 17
*
* Sequence Descriptors
*

* Sequence 0 "BMX, 32 bar loop"
    dc.b    $06; channel count = 6
    dc.b    $14,$00; offset to channel 0 = 20
    dc.b    $76,$02; offset to channel 1 = 630
    dc.b    $C1,$04; offset to channel 2 = 1217
    dc.b    $28,$06; offset to channel 3 = 1576
    dc.b    $BE,$08; offset to channel 4 = 2238
    dc.b    $E0,$09; offset to channel 5 = 2528
* Sequence 1 "Ship fire"
    dc.b    $01; channel count = 1
    dc.b    $DE,$0A; offset to channel 0 = 2782
*
* Sequence Channel Data
*

* Sequence 0, Channel 0:
    dc.b    $C0,$68,$4A,$61,$00,$64,$7F,$FC
    dc.b    $63,$86,$C6,$1F,$21,$24,$84,$C4
...
    dc.b    $30,$83,$30,$84,$30,$83,$30,$C0
    dc.b    $65,$60
* Sequence 0, Channel 1:
    dc.b    $C0,$61,$01,$64,$7F,$C0,$63,$84
    dc.b    $C6,$37,$83,$37,$84,$37,$83,$37
...

No pointers to worry about! The only problem is that you have to adjust the header offsets if you change the data. Perhaps labels may help? I don't know why Technopop didn't do this.

Now we just need to figure out what the data format is.

The other data types are similar. While Mikel only pointed to three types of banks, Ship's source indicates that there is also a modulation bank (MBANK); Ship does not use it; the MBANK.ASM file has no data (only header comments). Does Sonic Spinball use it?

And seriously, take a look at Ship's source. It's in the GEMS archive, in directory SHIP\MUSIC.

This post has been edited by Andlabs: 27 May 2009 - 10:25 PM

[roxahris]

SCHG:Sonic Spinball Music Hacking?

Sonic Spinball isn't the only GEMS game.

This is kind of off subject so forgive me but Rocket Knight Adventures uses the Hyperstone Heist Sound Driver. I really want a tool in the future that can convert Sound Driver files between formats.

Hell some of them have Custom Sound Drivers we still don't even know the names to yet. (Example: Streets of Rage 2)

You are retarded, and this is why.
a) "Hyperstone Heist" is the name (in actuality, subtitle) of a game. The name of the Konami music driver isn't known. Streets of Rage 2's driver could be an early version of the Ancient MD driver, too.
b) Your posts are practically "I want this music in my hack!" but... much less forward about it.

Ship's source indicates that there is also a modulation bank (MBANK);

Probably similar to SMPS modulation, but seperate from the song... maybe done per-instrument.

[Tweaker]

You are retarded

I fucking told you about this shit. Gone for a week.